"Pink Hollyhocks in the Mix" (Available)
Yesterday was the perfect combination of warmth, low humidity and early-summer loveliness. Today’s forecast predicts similar conditions. This daily check-in with the weather is necessary for planning what gets done when in Ohio — and I am delighted to set all else aside for yard work. “Gardening” is a much more poetic title for this activity but after weeks of wet spring to heat-wave intensity my yard needs work!
Our back yard won the call for attention yesterday. I chased the encroaching woods back with my hoe, once again clearing the space that I have designated as “garden” from it’s insistent weedy neighbors. I’m a strong believer in using native plants and the majority of my landscaping is made up of this informal combination of flowers and foliage. But I have to battle the invasive species that aggressively swallow the space natives need to thrive.
Ohio’s favorite weapon against weed-invasion is mulch. Lots of mulch around a few strategic landscaping plants. I resisted using this weapon for several years because I prefer an informal, English Cottage-style garden but I now realize that mulch is my friend because it can minimize the amount of time I have to spend weeding fertile ground. So I use mulch, purchasing ten or so bags at a time, shoveling it into place between spring thunderstorms. This requires that I haul a cumbersome bag (sometimes weighted with rain water) to the desired location before breaking it open to release its assistance. It’s a good test of my weight training.
I know that weight training is essential for health and function so I have spent my share of time in gyms. I’m currently committed to a Pilates studio and love its core-strength focus. The moves are small, based on form and isolation of muscle groups. I am building a hidden infrastructure of supportive muscles that help me function on a daily basis and carry bags of mulch.
Building is intricately woven into human culture:
Building bridges
Building a nest
Building one’s hopes
Building a firm foundation
Building a better mousetrap
Building castles in the sky
Building a case
Confidence-building
Body building
Building a body of work
I have been working on building a body of artwork for several years; this is an on-going process of discovery. It involves exploring new ways of making art using unfamiliar mediums, trying different subject matter and experimenting with painting style. It’s play that is hard work; it’s work that takes me beyond what is liked and most honestly communicates who I am.
Seeing public response to these exploratory pieces can undermine my self-discovery, tempting me to stick with what “works” (implying what sells). Artwork on social media is liked or disliked rather than pondered and considered, questioned, and explored. It’s easy to fall into step with the likes but then I don’t grow! I want to build the strength of my art, increasing its ability to change my small part of the world.
Even though art can be entertaining, its true power is in revelation: creation reveals the creator. That’s why it’s important to go beyond just liking or disliking what we experience when encountering art. Artwork is the fruit of its creator’s thinking, feeling, and believing. Preferences, passions, and values come into focus, gaining clarity and power as the artist makes more art and the body of work builds. Art has the power to change thinking, and as a result, to elevate or diminish the lives of those who view it.
Art is traditionally broken down into seven forms:
Painting, architecture, sculpture, literature, cinema, music, and performing.
Many people tell me they can’t draw a stick figure but art forms are enjoyed in other diverse ways! Drawing is one way to make art, but what about
Photography
Interior design and decoration
Comedy
Dance
Fashion
Hairstyling
Landscape
Tattoo
Calligraphy
Graphic and digital arts
Jewelry
Street art
Textiles
Printmaking
Pottery
Video
Gardening
Quilting
Woodworking and carpentry
And more…!
"Wonderful World" (Available)
My paintings are my testimony to what is important to me. Painting is my way of getting out into the world. This is important because I spend a lot of time absorbing Who God is. As a result, He is present in the niceties I create; through them His glory shines into a dark and painful world.
Art is a revelation, a comment, an expression, a representation of who the artist is at any stage of proficiency. The glory of God is spread through our creating, making, and sharing ideas through what we form. It’s no wonder our enemy has worked to convince the majority we are “bad” artists and only the talented can learn to create. Our creative voice has been silenced by the idolatry of perfectionism, judgement (good/bad), comparison, and the worship of performers.
The talented will indeed produce exceptional work; talent is a calling. But talent will not replace the discipline of practice — for years, for a lifetime — and the need of a core community of support. Artwork needs an audience to be complete. But the talented are not the only ones destined to create! Andy Crouch threads this truth throughout his book “Culture Making - Rediscovering Our Creative Calling”. He states
“To say that culture (art making) creates the horizons of possibility is to speak literal, not just figurative or metaphorical truth.
“This truth is embedded in the Genesis story of beginnings. Not only does God himself function as both Creator and Ruler, breather of possibilities and setter of limits, he intends the same for those who are made in his image. Without the task of gardening — cultivating, tending, ruling and creating using the bountiful raw material of nature — the woman and the man would have had nothing to do, nothing to be.” (emphasis mine).
Making, forming, building, working, developing, creating is what we DO, which in turn determines who we BECOME. As my body of work is growing, I am growing too. I am learning more about myself; art-making requires it. This is not a self-centered, narcissistic pursuit but truth-revealing. Participating in a creative pursuit builds discipline, imagination, focus, problem-solving, determination, not to mention sheer enjoyment, relaxation, and FUN.
I hope you will join me in body-building, by following my progress and developing your own creative path. We will inspire one another, which will, in turn, build another kind of body; the Body of Christ on earth. This is the body with strength to impact the growing darkness of our world, the body that will bring about lasting change, the body that fosters hope. In art there is hope!
"Spring in Swing" (Available)
